Just Some Girl
by CrookshanksClove
Summary: He was the best. The best of the best, so he clearly deserved the Victor's crown. She was just some girl with a smart mouth and a talent for knife-fighting who stood in his way. And yet, even to his own ears, it sounded dull and unconvincing. Rated T for mentions of violence and child abuse, vague C/C friendship. First story, please bear with me xD


She was just a stranger.

Some girl with a smart mouth and a talent for knife-fighting. Or Cato Crowel had convinced himelf, after their first meeting. He had been running home from the Tribute Academy in the rain after a meeting with his main trainer, a rock-like man named Fergus. Half of his lateness was due to the lecture he had received, half of it was semi-deliberate to prolong the wait until he had to return home and face_ him_. No doubt his father had heard about this morning's infraction; a scuffle with a fellow Trainee over an Academy sword, which could have gotten him expelled. No doubt _he_ would punish Cato for it. So Cato had trained for about an hour longer than he was supposed to, drawing out his time, and clocked out when the sky turned gray and heavy with storm clouds.

He was paying for his mistake. The raindrops felt like icy claws on his face, frozen hands in his hair. His regulation shorts and top were waterproof, yet he felt soaked to the skin. Cato no longer saw where he was going; he had left the Academy far behind and passed the center of town, and now walked on the shadowy paths towards the larger residences. The paths were slick, and it was dark out. Despite his usually impeccable coordination, Cato found himself slipping more often than not, and he grew frustrated. Frustrated with himself for letting himself be goaded into that fight, for staying at the Academy, for putting himself in this situation. His father would surely leave bruises tonight- he was suddenly grateful that the Academy shirt had long sleeves. Even if he had won the fight, Clive Crowel didn't allow weakness. Anger was fuel. Anger to the point of losing control was weakness.

The hilt of the sword, which he had smuggled out of the building, knocked at his hip, mocking him for his stupidity. He wouldn't have been able to bear to leave it. It was the sign of his dominance, of his superior strength. The other kid couldn't even handle the weapon. Cato, on the other hand, used the sword as an appendage. It was another part of his body, and his movements were fluid and precise. The sword was his, he concluded, nearing the bend that would lead to the sector in which he lived when something dark and forceful pushed past him, knocking him to the ground.

Cato looked up, prepared to release all of his anger on the person, depending on their status. This one was perfect to yell at: a tiny girl, pale and soaking as he, her dark hair drawn up into a tight and sodden ponytail. But there was something oddly chilling about her. She was not trembling, despite the cold, and did not look afraid, although at thirteen, Cato was already tall and muscular, his features eternally twisted into a mask of fierceness. On the contrary, her dark eyes looked annoyed, a scowl tugging at one corner of her pink mouth. Her expression was haughty, her chin raised. Cato was so caught off guard that his anger momentarily fizzled, only to return at full force.

"Think it's funny to knock people over, _shrimp_?" he spat, standing quickly and seizing her by the front of her shirt- Academy training shirt, he thought as fingers slipped on the water beading on the surface. Still, the girl wasn't afraid. Or, if she was, she hid her fear well.

"Let go of me, Crowel," she replied smoothly, smirking slightly when he showed surprise at her knowledge of his name, "I would think you had more pressing preoccupations, seeing as how your father can be heard smashing every breakable thing in that house from a mile away. I would get to your sister if I were you. One would think the sister of the Academy's fifth best male student would be less- fragile."

Cato looked into her face, confused, his face hot with humiliation. This girl knew him from training, even if he didn't know her. She knew where he lived, his ranking at the Academy, and, more importantly, she knew that he would be too preoccupied with the bit about his sister to find the time to beat her to a bloody pulp. He looked into her face, into those unwavering, unsettling dark eyes- quickly let go of the girl and sprinted past her.

He had forgotten about Cadoc, as his father had always tried to condition him to do. Clive had spent the nine years since his sister's birth trying to drill into his head that she was less than nothing. And, in the face of his panic and fear and shame, he had forgotten about his fragile sister, who was surely at home now, suffering their father's tirade in that blank-eyed, unreachable way of hers. His father would have been satisfied, he thought bitterly. The thought of little Cadoc, tiny and weak, the family's best-kept secret, facing their father's wrath alone was enough to propel Cato forward and with more desperation than before.

That night, as he lay in bed in far too much pain to feel anything, she wafted back into her mind. The cold, smirking girl who had bumped into him on the path. He didn't recall ever speaking to her, and had no idea if she lived in the area. Now that he thought about it, she had been running in the opposite direction. Who the hell was that? he asked himself, biting the inside of his cheek as the simple movement of turning onto his side brought a white-hot spike of agony shooting through him. There were a select few number of kids at the official Tribute Academy, and the number decreased each year as the weak were expelled, but he supposed a girl as small as her could go unnoticed in comparison to the more brutal students who were competing for the top spot in their gender. But, she had known him. What was even more strange was that she knew about Cadoc. How? The little girl had all of her classes at home and only exited the house to scratch numbers into the dirt in the garden. She lived in a seperate, isolated part of the mansion. Very few people came to call at the Crowel home, so very few people knew of her existence, save for those who worked for the city. Cato himself only saw her from his bedroom windo when Cadoc was allowed to walk in the garden. A pale, sickly child who never spoke. Who looked up occasionally and stared at Cato as though she didn't see him. It was easy to pretend she didn't exist; comfortable even, in the face of their social status's fragility and Cato's own conflicting feelings towards his sister's mental state and father's sadism. Cato often forgot Cadoc.

But, of course, their father never forgot. Clive Crowel never forgot his younger daughter, the spitting image of their mother, whose blank face filled him with loathing. What a waste, he often screeched, of the late Mrs. Crowel's final breath, only to give birth to such a stupid little creature. Every once in a while, Cato would come home to see a bruised little hand painting on Cadoc's window with the blood seeping from under its nails. His stomach would contract with pity and revulsion, and he would shove the emotions to the very depths of himself. They were not worthy of a Hunger Games victor.

So how did she know? Who was she, anyway?

Two years passed, three, four. He awoke one morning during that time to find District Two officials in the living room with his father. They said that Cadoc had jumped from her bedroom window. Cato had looked at his father, stared right at _him_, trying to curb his hatred and anger and fear, as Clive said, "Poor little angel. She's with your mother now, Cato. Come. Hug me."

Surely none of these men believed his father's story. That did not mean anyone would investigate. Cato had stepped closer to his father, buried his face in the man's shoulder, and prayed, prayed that he wouldn't become his prime target now that Cadoc was gone. Of course, that was unlikely; people knew Cato for his swordsmanship and promising future. They would notice if his state deteriorated so dramatically. Besides, he looked nothing like the late Mrs. Crowel. His father had no reason to hate him. He would only be subjected to mild brutality; beatings, electrical shocks, degrading words hissed in the dead of night.

During that time, he watched out for the dark-haired girl, recognizing her as Clove Curtridge, the seventh girl in line to be the female Tribute. She was a year younger than he. She was talented and deadly with a knife, and she trained as hard and often as he did. They began to play a wordless game. One of them would catch the other's eye and give a slight, nearly imperceptible shiver, as if back under the rain that day, and the other would reply with a shiver of their own. A greeting. An acknowledgement. A way of letting Cato know that she knew what she knew, and that she would tell no-one. He refused weakness, but this Clove, he found her gaze reassuring. Eventually, they began to speak. He learned about Clove, who lived on the side of town and took Tribute Preparation lessons with Mister Blatacoupe, the weapons master next door. Clove had a talent for spying, observing, making herself small and honing her skill until the time came to stand out and become a legend. Clove wanted to be the best, was convinced that she was the best of the best, and trained hard for the opportunity to prove it. Clove's father worked for the Capitol, her mother for the District, and were the very center of their nationwide information system. Clove had full access to their records in their absence, and had taken to studying family trees when she was bored. Her elder sister had been expelled from the Academy, and Clove scorned her weakness. She knew she would one day wear the Victor's Crown. Clove's parents were rarely home; she practically had that giant house to herself. Clove was sarcastic and bitter and always angry. They often sparred at the Academy, since they were both often alone. Her obsession with perfection made finding time to make friends difficult, and besides, she needed no-one; he intimidated and scorned the other trainees, many of whom were far from being on his level. He walked her home from the Academy, and he told her everything. They weren't friends; friends were liabilities, and friends of the other gender might enter the arena with you. Friends in the arena would be harder to eliminate and make winning difficult.

Then, on the fourth year, the fateful Reaping came. They both qualified to be Tributes, and were chosen by the Academy to volunteer, and announced this the night before the Reaping, as was traditional. They were watched through the night and encouraged to work out a technique before even reaching the Capitol, but neither of them could say a word. They shook hands over the Reaping ball, and he wondered if Clove could feel his pulse racing. Cato ignored the desperation within him, the fear he still hadn't mastered. Could Clove kill him? Would she? Was there no-one, one of the warrior-like girls from the Academy, to take her place? Of course not; she was the girl Tribute. She had been voted by the Academy Board. She would compete. _Alongside or against me?_ he asked himself, then felt instantly foolish. Against him. Of course. Clove wanted to be the best. Well, so did he. He flexed his sword hand.

_What is she to me? What is she, that I can't imagine killing her?_ Because, really, he couldn't. Clove's sharp tongue still, her glinting eyes dull, her agile and skilled hands cold- the very thought made him ill. He wouldn't be able to kill her and win. So Cato decided instead to postpone her death to the end of the Games. The two of them would be finalists, and offer Panem the bloodiest, goriest, most entertaining finale it had ever seen. It would be easier once she was his only obstacle to victory. And what was she, really? Just some girl. She was just some stranger with a smart mouth and a talent for knife-fighting, who had a knack for observing and figuring things out, and who probably knew him better than he knew himself.


End file.
